Some helpful habits may seem unusual, but they can really make a difference. Here are the top 6 such activities for every day and the best helpful habit tracker apps.
Stretch out
It’s no joke. The body is made for movement, and we have little variety of movement in the modern world. And we aren’t talking only about our work. Even betting, which used to take place in the stadiums, is now turning into online betting. The same thing applies to other activities, making us sit for much time during the day.
The best options are yoga, Pilates, stretching, and other types of stretching from professionals here. However, not everyone has the opportunity to do them every day. But to give five minutes in the morning after waking up for quality stretching, there should be no difficulty. So, if the soul lives in a person’s body, it has to have a specific place there. Or places. From the perspective of body-oriented therapy, those places are in the joints. The joints are the most energy-intensive parts of the body. They are powered by movement. And when we stretch the joints, the inner space in them increases. And the soul that lives there gets more space; it feels freer. So the contact with ourselves increases, and we feel ourselves more clearly and expressively. Increased freedom in the body leads to increased freedom in feeling ourselves and the world.
Listening to the Body
Being in contact with oneself is an important skill through which one can build a harmonious lifestyle and even prevent different diseases. Because the earlier we feel that something has gone wrong somewhere in our body, the earlier we pay proper attention to it. Besides, good contact with the body means that we trust ourselves, which means that we increase our self-esteem and become more confident.
Drink Plenty of Water
Fluid is present in all parts of our body. The more often it is renewed, the better the body functions. And drinking water with lemon is a cool healthy habit, if only because it’s convenient. You don’t have to memorize anything – just drink water immediately after waking up, squeezing a slice of lemon in it beforehand. And to make it more pleasant, put your favorite glass on the table in the evening and drink water from it in the morning.
Teach Your Brain Something New
Give your brain new and interesting information every day, and you’ll reduce the chances of Alzheimer’s (or multiple sclerosis) to almost zero. People who constantly learn new things keep their minds sober and think fast, even in old age. Especially if they combine this with physical activity and a healthy lifestyle. The brain, of course, tends to resist.
Nevertheless, this building of neural connections allows you to broaden your horizons, maintain critical thinking, and build harmonious relationships with others.
Breathe Deeply
How do you start noticing your breath? Because it’s so natural, hardly anyone ever forgets to breathe! We do forget. Basically, we breathe very shallowly. We only let the air in deeper when we yawn, sneeze, or sigh heavily on a hard day. That said, there is a very close connection between how we breathe and how we live out our emotions. The deeper our breathing, the more in touch we are with our emotions.
Sometimes our brain, in order to protect our psyche, shields us from experiencing deep emotions because it’s afraid we won’t be able to handle them. And in childhood, it helps because a child really can’t handle most strong feelings. His psyche is too fragile. But the habit of breathing superficially carries over with us into adulthood. And now it only hinders because, in this way, it blocks not only the experience of negative emotions but also positive ones.
After all, it is not for nothing that they say “I breathe full throttle” when they mean a full, active life, and “I suffocate here” when the psychological atmosphere is filled with negativity. Breathing practices can help you start noticing your breath and breathing more deeply. Yoga also helps with this. There are also many apps that you can download to your phone and practice mindful breathing for 5-10 minutes a day until it becomes a habit.
Move-in a Variety of Ways
We move terribly monotonously. And this doesn’t just apply to the “office plankton” who have mostly sedentary jobs. Even those who “move around” due to the nature of their work, often attend events and sometimes spend the whole day on their feet, have an extremely sparse, formulaic “movement vocabulary. And this scarcity comes out with various illnesses, burnout, and depressive states.
Now, if you’re responsibilities won’t give you a chance to do what you need to do, why not consider getting a sit stand desk? It basically breaks the monotony of just sitting all day.
Joints, ligaments, and muscles are made by nature to twist, stretch and contract in different directions at different angles. The sad news is that if you do not allow them to do this, then over time, they “wither away,” become fragile, easily injured, and ill. It can be difficult for older people to bend over to pick something up off the floor. But this does not apply to those who do ten such bends every day. Their body is used to it, so there is no difficulty.
Besides, the situation is complicated by body blocks and clamps, which were formed in childhood as a reaction to situations that the child’s psyche had to cope with. Most often, these blocks occur in one or more of the seven centers:
- Head-neck.
- Shoulders.
- Elbows.
- Hands.
- Hips-pelvis.
- Knees.
- Feet.
To expand the repertoire of movements of these centers, dance and movement practices are helpful. Find something suitable for yourself that will regularly shake them up. This way, you will not only protect yourself from most “age-related” diseases, but you will also feel better and get real pleasure from it.
